Photo credit: Josh Lo
Four thousand eight hundred and two students are expected to participate in the 2025 USC Viterbi School of Engineering and USC School of Advanced Computing graduation ceremonies during the week of May 12-16, 2025.
These USC Viterbi-specific commencement ceremonies include a Ph.D. hooding ceremony on Wednesday, May 14, and an undergraduate and two master’s level ceremonies at Galen Center on Friday, May 16th. The USC Viterbi and School of Advanced Computing ceremonies will feature the following keynote speakers: Azita Martin, alumna and vice president and general manager, retail & CPG at NVIDIA, for the undergraduate ceremony; Guangqiang (Jay) Jiang, alumnus, co-founder and chief technology officer of Axonics, Inc. for the Master of Science Ceremony 1; and Kevin Knight, AI pioneer and entrepreneur for the Master of Science Ceremony 2.
About the keynote speakers:
For the USC Viterbi Undergraduate Ceremony:
Keynote: Azita Martin
Vice President and General Manager Retail & CPG, NVIDIA
Azita Martin leads NVIDIA’s AI initiatives for the retail and consumer packaged goods industries, advising company executives on their AI strategy and how to build and scale AI agents and agentic AI solutions for business impact.
Her team develops the go-to-market strategy, develops NVIDIA’s retail solution stack and cultivates an AI software partner ecosystem focusing on intelligent supply chain, intelligent stores, and omnichannel optimization.
Before joining NVIDIA, Martin served as CMO at various startups and held leadership roles in product marketing at Salesforce, Siebel and Silicon Graphics. She holds a B.S. in aerospace engineering from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and an MBA from the USC Marshall School of Business.
Martin came to USC at the age of 17 as an international student.
Master’s Degree Ceremony 1:
Keynote: Guangqiang (Jay) Jiang
Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Axonics, Inc.
Guangqiang (Jay) Jiang, Ph.D., is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Axonics, Inc. (Nasdaq: AXNX), which was acquired by Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) in 2024. Axonics was a global medical technology company that developed and commercialized novel products, including sacral neuromodulation systems and a bulking agent for adults with bladder and bowel dysfunction.
Previously, Jiang served as vice president of research and development at the Alfred Mann Foundation for Scientific Research (now huMannity Medtec). He has led multiple projects focused on implantable medical devices and served as a principal Investigator on several government-funded grants related to advanced medical device technologies. He holds more than 40 issued U.S. patents and over 80 international patents. In 2015, he was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).
Jiang studied at Tsinghua University in Beijing before moving to the United States. He earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering in 2005. Additionally, he is an accredited director through the Director Training & Certification Program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Master’s Degree Ceremony 2:
Keynote Speaker: Kevin Knight
Computer Scientist and Entrepreneur
Kevin Knight is an academic and an entrepreneur. He has served on the USC Viterbi faculty and was chief scientist at Language Weaver, Inc., which he co-founded, and chief scientist for natural language processing at Didi Global.
He has co-authored over 150 research papers on natural language processing, as well as a widely adopted textbook, “Artificial Intelligence.” Knight served as general chair for the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) in 2005, as ACL president in 2011, as general chair for the North American ACL (NAACL) in 2016, and as co-program chair for the inaugural Asia-Pacific ACL (2020). He received an Outstanding Paper Award at NAACL 2018, and Test-of-Time awards at ACL 2022 and ACL 2023. He is a fellow of the ACL and a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
Knight was a pioneer in applying statistical methods to problems in natural language processing and AI. In symbolic AI, Knight led the development of Abstract Meaning Representation, a method for capturing the semantics of English sentences, including manual annotation of tens of thousands of pieces of text. He also championed the use of finite-state string automata for NLP, and he developed the first connections between NLP and tree automata. While tracing the origins of NLP to World War II cryptography, Knight developed new algorithms for breaking classical ciphers, which he applied to crack a number of ciphers of historical significance, including the secret-society Copiale text and the military communications of General James Wilkinson. His cryptographic work also appears in Hollywood films such as “Under the Silver Lake.”
He received a Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. Â degree from Harvard University.
For information about the USC Viterbi School of Engineering ceremonies, please visit: https://viterbigrad.usc.edu/academic-services/commencement-information/
Published on April 2nd, 2025
Last updated on April 2nd, 2025
